Parallel Partners
by RaucousLaughter
Summary: After a crash landing, Clara can't find the Doctor. She does, however, encounter a skinny stranger in a trench coat who reminds her of someone. They've got to work together to get out of danger. Clara's P.O.V I came up with this before watching the 7.2 finale. Started as dialogue between 11 & companion (imagining myself) as I thought of what would happen should they meet Tentoo.


"Doctor...Doctor?!" I called, through a thick cloud of smoke. A coughing fit threatened to take me over and a high-pitched ringing burned my ears. I could hardly see the hand in front of me, let alone properly look for the Doctor. I was vaguely aware of the crashed TARDIS, but had no idea what it meant for us or where it was. Had it broken? Was it still in one piece or several? The landing had been particularly rough. Nausea crept into my stomach as I recalled the dizzying whirl we'd encountered only moments ago. Was it only moments? May as well have been hours. Where were we? The Doctor hadn't told us our destination. "A surprise," he'd said, jumping up like a giddy school boy. His face had said that this surprise promised adventure and harmless fun. Right before we'd spun out of control. "Hello?" I ventured, never stopping, but continuing to wander through the smoke. Besides the ringing in my ears, all was silent. The ground felt soft, like sand. The air was decidedly cool and as I moved through the smoke, I thought I heard the sound of waves nearby. A gull called to his fellows overhead and some of the smoke began to disappear. Then it was clear...the smoke was not smoke. What I'd assumed was smoke from the crashed TARDIS was in fact fog. And it rolled away smoothly to reveal that I indeed stood on a beach. Alone. Just myself and the gulls. No sign of the TARDIS or the Doctor. Panic threatened to set in, but I was determined to keep my cool. I had to think logically. Attack the situation from all sides, like the Doctor would. "Hello?" I heard my own voice, but mentally I kicked myself for calling out when I was so clearly alone. All of a sudden, the ringing returned in my ears, louder than before, drowning out the sound of the waves. It felt like it was both inside my head and out, made my whole body buzz. I covered my head in my hands, but that didn't keep out the sound. Then they came, the footfalls in the, almost inaudible in the sand, but I heard them, or felt them rather and I turned to see a man running in my direction. I did not have the urge to run from him, but rather remained stock still, watching him appear larger as he grew closer. He was tall and skinny and oddly dressed for the beach, despite the chill of the weather. He was in a suit and along coat and his hair was wild, no doubt due to the wind off the bay. He did not slow as he came closer, instead, he seemed to be coming faster and right towards me.

"Run!" he called as he approached me, not stopping, but grabbing my hand. I don't know why I didn't shake him off, but I allowed him to pull me along. A stranger, sure, but aside from him I was alone. I had no choice but to trust him and oddly I felt it wasn't a choice. I _did_ inherently trust him. We slowed, only as we approached a different set of cliffs and then I saw it, the TARDIS. It was still in one piece, but laid on its side, against a crag.

"Where is he? The Doctor?" the man asked, his black eyes burning into me, strangely familiar.

"I don't know," I said. "Do you know him?"

"A bit, yes," the man answered.

"Who are you?"

"No time for that, we've got to get to the TARDIS."

"How do you know...why should I let you in, when you won't even tell me who you are?"

"Have a key do you?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's right..." I reached into my pocket. Empty.

"Here," the man said holding out and dangling my key on its silver chain.

"You should really keep this around your neck."

"I usually do."

"I know."

"How?"

"Like I said...no time. Come on." With that, he pressed forward.

"What's your name?" I asked, not budging. He stared into my eyes and again that sense of familiarity washed over me. "How do you know the Doctor?"

"I'm called John," he answered, after a brief pause. "And let's just say the Doctor's an old friend."

"Where are we?"

"Bad Wolf Bay."

"What planet?"

"Earth. Parallel universe."

"_When_ are we?" He may have been about to answer, but the ringing took over once more and I cringed. Again he pulled me by the hand. He seemed unaffected by the noise, but I wanted to cry out, the sound more painful in my head than before.

"It sounds closer!" I said, aware that I was shouting.

"Trust me, it can't be any closer."

"Where's it coming from?"

"You."

"Me? Explain."

"I can't, but the Doctor can."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, but I can find him. We've got to keep moving." As we approached the TARDIS, the fog reappeared, suddenly, blacker and more like smoke than before.

"Don't leg go of my hand." Once again it was nearly impossible to see and difficult to breathe. Then I heard a strange clicking sound, like some kind of insect or rather, like many of them.

"What's that?"

"We have to get inside." The man called John put the key into TARDIS and the clicking grew, all around us. Through the fog I could make out what looked like lobster pinchers, snapping. I let out a small shriek..

"It's not working. The TARDIS won't open for me."

"What?" I asked and he tossed the key at me. I tried to open the door, but still it wouldn't open. "I can't get it, either. What do we do?" Out of his pocket came a very familiar object to me. A sonic screwdriver. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Fear threatened me now. How could this stranger have come by that.

"Is that...what I think it is?"

"Yeah," he said, eyes wide. He was trying to open the door with the screwdriver now, but to no avail.

"Did you do something to the Doctor? Because if you did...if you hurt him..."

"Not the time!" He shouted, and ceased trying to open the door to point the screwdriver towards the creatures which were no horribly close. Then another flash of light came from somewhere behind me, and there stood the Doctor, with his screwdriver in hand too. I stood helpless as the two men battled the lobster-like creatures. I watched as the Doctor and the stranger moved together, like clockwork, sending them away into the bay. The men anticipated one another's moves perfectly. They each seemed to know what the other was thinking. Traveling with the Doctor, we'd encountered many strange things together. We worked like a team, and a damn good one, but they way these two played of one another...it was like nothing I'd ever seen. And I'd seen the birth and death of planets.

"Get inside the TARDIS!" the Doctor called to me.

"It won't open."

"It will now I'm here. Just do it!" Scrambling, I obeyed, screeching as the odd lobster things flew about me, making disturbing sounds of their own.

"What are they?" I asked, turning around as I put the key in.

"Just get inside the TARDIS!" But the key was knocked out of my hand as I too fell hard to the ground.

"Clara!" The Doctor's voice sounded distant, though the sound of the two screwdrivers and the suffering creatures was all around me.

"You got what you came for, now just go back," said the stranger's voice. A high hissing sound answered him and I looked up to see what must have been the leader of the lobsters. He towered over everything including the TARDIS and as I looked closer I saw that it was made up of the little ones. The Doctor said something mimicking the foreign sounds of the creature's language. The ones they'd sent into the bay were scuttling back, trying to join their brethren.

"We need a teleport," shouted the Doctor. "Inside the TARDIS!" Silver glimmered in the corner of my eye and I knew it was the key. I grabbed it, groaning as I stood, my ankle crying out in pain which I tried to ignore. Finally, I pulled the door of the blue box opened and shut the door behind me, the sounds and screams of outside melting away.

"Teleport, teleport...where would I be if I were a teleport...?" I spoke to myself and no one and yet, to the TARDIS itself, hoping she'd help me. "I need to help the Doctor."

"I am a voice interface. Teleports are with the costumes. You'll find them in a trunk with an assortment of hats." What looked like a hologram of a pretty, young, blonde woman with big features appeared in front of me. She was not a woman I recognized, but her voice was kind and warm and I believed her.

"Thank you," I said and swiftly raced to find them.

"Is this a teleport? I asked, rummaging through the hats and finding something that looked like an enormous button on a chain. Everything else inside the trunk was a hat and my instinct told me that it was a teleport. I moved as fast as I could on my aching ankle. As I passed back through the control room, I noted that the voice interface was gone. I pulled open the TARDIS door and there on the beach was a monstrous creature made up of all the smaller creatures and it snarled and snapped dangerously close to the Doctor and to the stranger. Both men aimed their screwdrivers at the thing as it writhed and whatever power lay in the Doctor's only "weapon" seemed to be holding it off.

"Give that here. Now!" yelled the Doctor. I threw it to him and he threw it to his friend who threw it up around one of the pinching claws of creatures. The Doctor aimed his screwdriver at the teleport and then in the blink of an eye, the thing was gone.

"Well then, Doctor. I think that'll do for now," said John the stranger, stuffing his screwdriver back into his pocket. The Doctor just looked at him, a sad shadow crossing his face. For a long time he didn't speak.

"How is she?" he asked looking past me into the stranger's eyes, more serious than I'd ever seen him.

"Don't...don't do that to yourself. You gave her me for a reason...so you'd never have to go down that road again...because you can't. As much as you may want to."

"I'd only like to know how..."

"I know, Doctor. You just have to trust me. Trust yourself, that you made the right choice."

"Um, hello," I said, moving between them. "What are you going on about, or _who _rather?"

"No one," the Doctor said, clapping his hands together, like he did whenever he had a plan...whenever he wanted to avoid something tricky. "Right then, thank you...John Smith, is it? Yes, thank you for coming to our aid. Should be able to take it from here, though, lovely to see you again, handsome as always."

"Yes, best be getting back. I can't believe it...still not ginger."

"Well, their's always next time. We'd best be going as well."

"It was nice to finally meet you, Clara."

"You too, _John_," I said eyeing him suspiciously. The Doctor had already waved goodbye to his friend and gone into the TARDIS. I followed, peeking my head out to watch the tall, skinny, curious man walk back along the beach the way he'd come. The door creaked closed. The Doctor sat in a seat by the controls, feet propped up on the dials, his hands folded in front of him, pensive. Slowly, I approached.

"Your friend...How do you know him? He reminded me so much of...you."

"He is me."

"How is that possible?"

"Anything's possible."

"That's not an answer."

"Isn't it?"

"No." I shook my head defiantly. "If he's you, why doesn't he look like you?" I pressed.

"Long story."

"All ears, Doctor."

"Very long..."

"I'm listening. We've got all the time in the universe at our disposal. You can keep running from me, keeping secrets Doctor, but I'll keep running after you. Always."

"No, Clara. You won't. You can't. That's the thing. I leave people. Or they leave me. Every time. People I love...people who love me, people who never thought we'd ever be parted...but the parting is always inevitable. "

"Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. Isn't that what they say?"

"Maybe for a human life that's true. You hopefully live for close to a hundred years happily and healthily, but for me...after a thousand years...the things I've seen, the things I've had...the things I've lost. The only thing you need to know about me, the only secret is this...that I'm alone."

"You're not. People may come and go in your life, Doctor. That doesn't mean you're alone."

"Even you, Clara. One day, you won't be traveling with me. I've been to the future, but I don't see the future. I don't know how it will come to pass, I only know that it will." I stared at him long and hard. His sadness threatened to overwhelm me. Sighing, I walked closer still to his side and crouched down next to him.

"But that didn't stop you from bringing me with you...from choosing me to accompany me...and I'm glad it didn't. No matter what happens, Doctor, no matter how it happens...I will always be grateful for the time we had together." Just then, the blonde woman appeared again and spoke.

"I am a voice interface. Teleports are with the costumes. You'll find them in a trunk with an assortment of hats." The Doctor looked at the image with a pained expression then stood quickly and turned the interface off with the push of a button.

"Must be a glitch," I said. "Who is she?"

"Rose Tyler," answered the Doctor. "She traveled with me. I lost her, left her here. With him. I had to."

"John, you mean?"

"With me. He is the Doctor. He's what I used to be, before this face, this body, this mind. But we still have the same thoughts, some of them."

"That's what you used to look like?" I asked, intrigued. "Huh...Did you love her? Rose Tyler." The Doctor just nodded slightly, but he may as well have given me a resounding 'yes.' I decided not to question him further.

"Those creatures...what were they."

"Cremeneans. The feed off of paradoxes. Without a paradox they can't survive and by coming here, we created one. The two of us here together, it's too much. That's why I can't come back, was never meant to come back."

"But we crashed."

"Because of the Cremeneans. They caused us to crash, so they could get our paradox energy."

"So does he...the other Doctor...does he live on that beach."

"No, I doubt it. But I sent him a message to come to our aid."

"You did?"

"Well, I'm doing it now," he said pulling out his psychic paper. He answers the call, creating the paradox energy, and we can gather all the Cremeneans together in order to send them back home."

"So we crashed on purpose..."

"No...well, yes, but I didn't know when we crashed."

"Sorry..still getting used to this...timey...wimey..."

"Oh, bless you, Clara, bless you!" He said loudly, a childlike grin spreading across his face, the one I was so familiar with. A little brightness returned to his face and he hugged me tightly.

"Hang on...how did he...know me?"

"Well, I've just told him about you in my message. Told him you often lose your key."

"I do not!" I protested, reaching for the chain around my neck.

"Looking for this?" asked the Doctor, dangling the key before me. Groaning, I reached for it and placed it back around my neck in a huff. I'd have to learn to take better care of it. "So, where to now?"

"Where were we headed before?"

"I told you, it was a surprise."

"I've had enough surprises for one day."

"So we'll go to a different day," he said cheerfully. I rolled my eyes as he pulled the controls to take us off to the next adventure.


End file.
